These trucks ought to be lighted up like a Christmas tree at nights

Nov 24, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
There is quite much meat in the saying: “what we see depends mainly on what we look for”. This is exactly what is happening with me every time I see those massive giant logs piled high on those logging trucks and being transported through Linden along the highway to wherever.
Editor, this letter is yet another for the umpteen time and moreso a direct appeal to the entire community and the relevant key players and top functionaries with responsibility for the affairs of Linden/Region# 10.
I trust that this call will not be glossed over; a cursory glance as also ran; that it serves to seriously start or quicken dialogue for logs to be transported by river as they once used to be, once they are not concealed in containers as some are being transported until a better alternative is created. This appeal is for the safety and goodness of all.
Very often, watching these logs being transported set your imagination ablaze in a most frightening way; now this is not a question of being pessimistic, no sir, but rather very pragmatic and a genuine concern for the lives of people.
Just talk with folks and hear their views; everyone shares a sense of foreboding whenever these logging trucks are on the move – and they are more regular now than ever day and night.
Our forestry will soon vanish at the rate the trees are falling. Logs are only cut to specific lengths when they are carried in containers, otherwise they are any length long over forty feet and more and invariably are projected ten feet beyond the end of the trailer if not more, dangerously dangling and bucking even as they are strapped and chained which you sometimes imagine can snap at any moment as they cross bridges and uneven portions of the highway, many parts which long now need resurfacing and are getting worse.
Watching these trucks negotiating a turn with the logs extended across the road raises the pores on your skin. One cannot erase the horrible thoughts that enters the mind – it just happens–one is always overwhelmed with wild alarming trepidation seeing and imagining children cycling alongside of them as many do in getting to school. I’m speaking here of naked raw fear, a frightening heart-throbbing experience/scenario.
Attention must also be taken of the fact that the prescribe requirement for fitness are often not in order, hence the reason why they can be seen here and there, broken down along the highway.
Vehicles approaching them many times have no proper sense of judgement of the extent to which the logs are extended; some trucks are poorly illuminated at nights, no reflectors, no red lights signalling danger, even at times one head lamp, when indeed these trucks ought to be lighted up like a Christmas tree at nights.
One time you hear that they are restricted to working between certain hours, but that is not so, they work around the clock. With all that we have seen in the past, can someone tell me what we are waiting for. Just why isn’t the river a safer place until there is another alternative?
I repeat: I hope that this appeal is not treated with scant regard. And if the opening saying I began with: “What we see depends mainly on what we look for” didn’t prick your ears to take hold of you, here’s another I know to be true: “Fear has many eyes and can see things underground”. May Jesus be our Shepherd.
Frank Fyffe

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